Monterey, CA -18 February 2018. The Monterey State Historic Park is composed of a number of significant historic houses and buildings interspersed throughout Old Monterey.

AlessandraRC/Shutterstock

Pacific House

Monterey


Find out what's currently open at Monterey State Historic Park, grab a free map and buy tickets for guided walking tours inside this 1847 adobe building, where fascinatingly in-depth exhibits cover the state’s early Spanish, Mexican and American eras. Walking tours run at 10:30am, 12:30pm & 2pm Thursday to Sunday.

Nearby are some of the state park’s historical highlights, including an old whaling station and California’s first theater. A 10-minute walk south is the old Monterey jail featured in John Steinbeck’s novel Tortilla Flat.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Monterey attractions

1. Monterey State Historic Park

0.01 MILES

Old Monterey is home to an extraordinary assemblage of 19th-century brick and adobe buildings administered as a state park and linked by a 2-mile self…

2. Dali17

0.04 MILES

Escaping WWII in Europe, Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí lived and worked in the Monterey and Carmel area in the 1940s. Comprising over 300 Dalí…

3. Custom House

0.06 MILES

In 1822, a newly independent Mexico ended the Spanish trade monopoly and stipulated that any traders bringing goods to Alta (Upper) California must first…

4. California's First Theater

0.09 MILES

Originally built as a lodging house and tavern in 1847, and used as a theater from 1850, this building is currently closed for renovation.

5. Old Whaling Station

0.1 MILES

Open to the public, this fine adobe structure was originally built in 1847 by Scottish settler, David Wight.

6. Presidio of Monterey Museum

0.3 MILES

On the grounds of the original Spanish fort, this specialized museum (of interest only to history buffs) looks at Monterey’s history from a military…

7. Colton Hall

0.35 MILES

Peek inside brick Colton Hall, where California’s first constitutional convention took place in 1849. Once the capitol of Alta (Upper) California, today…

8. Stevenson House

0.36 MILES

Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson came to Monterey in 1879 to court his wife-to-be, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne. This building, then the French Hotel…